sunsets and silhouette dreams
by videogamenerd101
Summary: Sakura, the soft-spoken girl who feels like her dreams are too far out of reach for her. Tenten, the new student who lives a life without worries and can seemingly deal with anything that comes at her with ease. When their paths cross, they both realize that there's so much more to themselves than they realized. — SasuSaku, NejiTen. AU.


**notes:** before we start, I'll clarify some things so that the story will make more sense (though you guys may know a lot of this stuff from watching anime lol). the japanese school year starts in april, which is very different from how it is in the west, and on the first day of school in japan, there's always an entrance ceremony for the students. high school is only three years in japan, so it's kind of like the first year of high school is 10th grade, but you'd still graduate at what the west would consider 12th grade. at the beginning of any school day, students have to go to their lockers to change their shoes with what are called indoor shoes (idk what the actual japanese term for them are).

that should be all you need to know to understand it. however, my knowledge of the japanese education system is based entirely off anime and what I've read online, so if there are any inaccuracies in how I'm writing it, please don't hesitate to point them out.

anyway, enjoy the first chapter of my new story!

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 _ **sunsets and silhouette dreams**_

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 **i. how did we end up talking in the first place?**

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The sky was a pretty light blue with only a few small wisps of clouds, letting the sunshine warm her skin without making her feel too hot. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom and looked as beautiful as ever, the occasional breeze causing some of the pink petals to fall and settle on the sidewalk. Spring was here, and its beauty was one of the reasons why Sakura loved the season so much.

The fact that it was the beginning of the school year, however, was definitely _not_ a reason to love spring.

"Sakura-chan, there you are!"

Sakura swerved around to see Naruto running up to her and waving his hand to her. Sakura smiled and waved back, waiting for Naruto to catch up.

"Hey, Naruto," she said. "How was your spring break?"

"Awesome!" he exclaimed. "I ate lots of ramen, so of course it was great. I mean, except for the entrance exam, though." He wrapped an arm around Sakura's shoulders. "I'm so glad we both made it into the same school, though!"

Sakura shoved Naruto away from her, and Naruto landed unceremoniously onto the sidewalk face first. She made no attempt to help him up. "I thought I told you before not to flirt with me," she stated, hands on her hips and an unpleasant expression on her face that made Naruto whimper.

"I'm sorry, Sakura-chan!" Naruto said with such a hurt voice that almost made Sakura feel sympathetic toward him. Almost. As he got up, he continued, "I know, I know, you like Sasuke and–"

Sakura immediately cupped his mouth and glared at him. "What the hell, you idiot?" she hissed, balling her other hand into a fist to threaten him. "Don't just say that out loud like that!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" he apologized, waving his hands in front of him. "But Sakura-chan, Ino already knows that you like Sasuke, so why do I need to be quiet about it? And we're not even sure if Sasuke's going to the same school we are."

"First of all, every single girl is in love with him, so if any of them overheard that I like Sasuke-kun, they'd probably strangle me, and even if it's only Ino who hears it, I really don't like bringing it up around her. Also, Sasuke-kun is way too smart not to make it, so I'm sure he'll be there." Sakura raised her brows at Naruto. "The real question is how _you_ of all peoplepassed the entrance exam."

"Honestly, I have no clue how I passed it, either," he admitted, rubbing the back of his head and smiling sheepishly. "Hey, at least I got in!"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Come on, we should hurry. We don't wanna be late for the first day."

They picked up the pace, and in a few minutes, they arrived at the school. After going to their new lockers to change their shoes, they went to check which classroom they'd be in. Sakura and Naruto had been placed in the same classroom, and so had Sasuke ("I _told_ you Sasuke-kun passed the entrance exam!" Sakura told Naruto).

Sakura's spirits fell when she saw that Ino would also be in the same classroom.

For the whole break, Sakura had been hoping and praying and crossing her fingers that she and Ino wouldn't be in the same classroom, and she wanted anything but to see her pretty little face again and to hear any more of her insults. It looked like she'd have to deal with that obnoxious blonde for another year, though.

 _It's just one year, Sakura. You can deal with it. I have Naruto to help me through this, and Sasuke-kun is in my class. Sasuke-kun is in my class!_

Naruto put a hand on her shoulder. "Sakura-chan, are you okay?"

Sakura looked up at him and smiled. "Yeah, I'm fine." She really wasn't.

Naruto was way too oblivious and gullible to notice, though, and just smiled back. "Okay! If you ever need anything, though, just let me know, alright? I'm your friend, Sakura-chan."

She nodded. "Of course."

They made their way to where the entrance ceremony would be held, found where the rest of their class was, and sat down with them. Naruto immediately started talking about the newest episode of _One Piece_ with Kiba and Chouji, who were sitting behind him.

She turned to face the front of the room, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw Uchiha Sasuke sitting two rows in front of her.

She couldn't see his face, but she'd recognize his spiky black hair and pale skin from anywhere. His shoulders were hunched and his hands were stuffed in his pockets. She could easily picture the impassive and apathetic expression that she knew was etched on his face.

Sakura gulped. Should she say something to him? They were never friends, nor did they ever really talk to each other much, but they had known each other since elementary school, and they had gone to school together ever since. Plus, if she wanted to have a chance with him, she'd have to talk to him at some point.

But knowing her, she'd probably screw up and stutter over her words, and she'd only end up embarrassing herself in front of him. Also, he was always so quiet, and he preferred to keep to himself, so he'd probably think that she was annoying and he'd ignore her forever. On top of that, he was the son of Uchiha Fugaku, one of the wealthiest and most famous businessmen in Japan, so someone like Sakura was probably insignificant to him compared to all his other fangirls throughout the whole school and probably all of Japan, too.

Before Sakura could think about it anymore, she saw someone sit in the seat right next to her, and she felt her insides begin to boil.

It was Yamanaka Ino.

"Hello, Forehead Girl," said Ino snidely, smirking.

"Hello, Ino-pig," Sakura retorted.

Ino leaned in closer to Sakura. "So we're in the same class, huh? Guess I'll have to deal with _you_ for a whole year." She started speaking in a softer voice. "At least Sasuke-kun's in our class, so it may not be _that_ bad."

Sakura began to fume with rage, but did her best to suppress it. "There's no way I'll ever let _you_ have him."

"I'd like to see you try," Ino taunted. "I bet Sasuke-kun thinks I'm prettier than you. Who'd actually like you with that huge forehead of yours, anyway?"

"Oh yeah? I don't understand why anyone would like someone with such a huge attitude like yours, either."

"Yo, can you guys keep it down?"

Sakura and Ino turned to the source of the voice in front of them. It was Shikamaru, who had just arrived and had taken a seat in front of Ino.

"If you guys are gonna fight, just don't do it here, please," he said lazily.

Ino pinched his ear, and Shikamaru let out a yelp. "Hey, mind your own business! This is between me and Sakura, so don't get yourself involved." She let go of him and sat back down, arms crossed.

Shikamaru rubbed his ear and rolled his eyes. He muttered something inaudible under his breath, but Sakura was pretty sure he said something along the lines of "Girls are so troublesome."

The head of school started to make her way to the front of the room to give her speech, and all the students stood up and became quiet. She silently thanked the head of school for shutting up everyone–Ino specifically.

Right before the head of school began her speech, he overheard Shikamaru telling Ino, "I don't get why you guys are always fighting over some stupid guy. You two used to be friends, right? It's kind of a shame, really."

Sakura pursed her lips. She didn't hear if Ino said anything back, but Sakura didn't care. She wanted to think that Shikamaru was wrong and he should just keep his own thoughts about what she and Ino should do to himself.

She couldn't find it in herself to deny it, though.

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"Man, that was _so boring_ ," said Naruto, yawning. "I was about to fall asleep. And I was _standing,_ Sakura-chan. Who the hell starts falling asleep while they're standing?"

"Apparently you do," Sakura blatantly pointed out. She shook her head. "I can't believe you sometimes, Naruto."

"Well, we're gonna have class now, so maybe I'll just sleep then."

"Have fun cleaning the school tonight." Sakura rolled her eyes. "Let's go find our classroom."

Immediately after saying that, she accidentally walked into someone, and Sakura felt heat rise to her face. She scolded herself for not paying attention to her surroundings.

The person she had run into was a girl with tan skin and black hair that was up into two buns, and from her features, Sakura could tell that she wasn't Japanese–she was most likely Chinese.

"I'm so sorry!" said Sakura. "I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going."

The girl laughed. "No, you're fine," she said, waving it off. She started making her way up the stairs.

Sakura noted that the girl's Japanese was fluent, so maybe her parents were from China, but she was raised in Japan?

She pushed the thought away. It wasn't like it really mattered to her, anyway.

"You should watch where you're going."

Sakura froze in her spot. She didn't have to look behind her to know that it was Sasuke.

She turned around anyway and saw him standing right behind her, scrutinizing her. She remained silent, not sure what to say. She had to say _something_ , though.

She racked her brain for words, but the best she was able to come up with was, "S-S-Sasuke-kun? What are you doing?"

 _Damnit, Sakura,_ she thought. _Why couldn't you have said something else?_

But he seemed to have ignored her. "If you keep walking around without paying attention, you might end up hurting yourself," he stated in his typical deadpan voice. He then left for their classroom without another word.

Naruto eyed him warily as Sasuke walked away. "What's up with him?" Naruto sighed. "Coming here just to yell at you like that… I don't get why you like him so much, Sakura-chan."

"There's more to him than what you just saw."

"Eh, whatever. But I feel like whenever he talks to you, he's always being rude to you."

Sakura didn't say anything to that. There wasn't much she could do to change Naruto's mind, anyway.

Instead, without making eye contact with Naruto, she just said, "We should get to class."

And that was that. The first day of school passed by in a blur, and before Sakura knew it, she was already leaving the classroom. Naruto had actually ended up sleeping during class, and their teacher, Iruka-sensei, had yelled at him for a good five minutes and told him to clean up the classroom all by himself once class was over. When Sakura said goodbye to Naruto and left the school building, the sun was already setting. She'd normally be thinking about how pretty the sunset was, but all that was on her mind was what Shikamaru had said to Ino earlier that day and what Naruto had said about Sasuke right before class had begun.

Sakura suddenly stopped walking and took a moment to scold herself. She shouldn't dwell on other people's opinions too much. In the end, it was her life, so she should make her own decisions and have her own opinions and not let anyone else influence her.

Right?

Someone tapped Sakura on the shoulder, and she jumped in her spot. She turned around to see that it was the Chinese girl whom Sakura had run into in the morning after the entrance ceremony.

"Hey, are you okay?" asked the girl. "You were just standing there and not moving, so I thought something might be wrong."

Sakura shook her head. "No, no! Everything's fine. I was just thinking a lot. I've kinda got a lot on my mind right now." She rubbed her neck, laughing a little uneasily.

The girl giggled. "If you had to completely stop walking just to think, you gotta have a lot on your mind right now." She looked ahead of her. "Are you heading that way?"

Sakura nodded.

The girl smiled. "Me too. You know, if you got a lot on your mind, you should have somebody to talk to about it. I know that we barely know each other, but if you want, you can tell me what's up. I mean, that's if you want to. As I said, we barely know each other, so I completely understand if you don't wanna tell me about it. And if you want, we can just talk about something else, if it helps get your mind off whatever it is you're thinking about."

Sakura hardly knew this girl–hell, she didn't even know her name, so she had no reason to start telling her about her problems. But at the same time, there was something about how upfront and direct she was that was just… interesting. She had never met anyone who would just start talking to someone and ask them to talk to them about something personal with such ease.

Sakura liked that about this girl.

Sakura bit her lip. "Okay… but first, well… what's your name? I don't think we've actually introduced ourselves to each other."

"Oh, yeah!" The girl laughed to herself, and Sakura couldn't help but laugh as well. It was almost like her laughter was contagious. The girl held out her hand to Sakura. "My name's Tenten. And you?"

Sakura shook Tenten's hand. "I'm Sakura. Haruno Sakura."

"Well, nice to meet you, Sakura-chan!" said Tenten. "This actually makes you the first person at school who I've introduced myself to."

"Really?" said Sakura. She figured that, considering how easily Tenten seemed to be talking to her, she would have introduced herself to a lot more people than just Sakura. "Are you new to the school?"

"Yeah," said Tenten as they both started walking again. "I'm actually from China, and I've been living with a friend of mine in Tokyo. I just moved here a few weeks ago."

"Oh, that's cool." Sakura nodded. "Why did you move to Tokyo?"

Tenten shrugged. "Well, I used to spend a lot of time here in Tokyo when I was little whenever I'd be on break from school since my dad has to travel here a lot for his job. Whenever my dad was with his business partners in Japan, my dad's friend would usually babysit me and he had a kid of his own, so I'd spend a lot of time with him, and we were kinda childhood friends, I guess. I thought I'd come back to Tokyo and live here for the rest of high school with my friend. See, my dad hadn't gone to Tokyo in a long time, so I wasn't able to see my friend, either, so I thought this would be a cool opportunity for me to go visit him."

"Wow, your parents let you go to Tokyo like that?" Sakura wondered, eyes practically bulging out of their sockets. "That's so awesome! Your parents sound really cool."

Tenten laughed. "Yeah, I guess they give me a lot more freedom than other people my age. It was a little hard convincing them to let me go since I had already started my first year of high school over in China and they wanted me to stay, but eventually they let me go."

Sakura resisted the urge to squeal. Squeal? She had never squealed before, so that was such a foreign thing to her. "That's actually _really_ cool. I've never been out of Japan before, so I'd really like to go out of the country someday."

"I'm sure you will. Visiting a different country is a really weird experience, but it's really fun and rewarding." She stopped walking when they reached a convenience store, and Sakura stopped, too. "Anyway, I gotta pick up some stuff here before heading back home."

"Oh." Sakura was really enjoying talking to Tenten, and she didn't feel like she was ready to part from her. "Well, I hope we can talk some more! It was nice meeting you, Tenten."

"Yeah, you too! And hey, how about you come over to where I'm staying sometime? It's at my friend's house. I'm sure he and his father would be cool with me having friends over."

Friends? They hadn't talked very much, and she already called Sakura a friend?

Still, Sakura couldn't deny the fact that she felt flattered, and even a little happy, by that.

"Yeah, that would be cool," said Sakura, nodding. "I'll see you at school tomorrow!"

Tenten smiled. "You too!" She waved to Sakura as the pink-haired girl started walking away, and Sakura waved back.

When Tenten was out of sight, Sakura sighed. She had just talked to someone who was practically a complete stranger to her, but now they were friends–at least, Tenten had said they were friends. Sakura's only really close friend for the past few years was Naruto, and having a female friend like Tenten would be really nice. Her last female friend had been Ino, but ever since… _that_ day, Sakura had cut off all ties with her.

Sakura cursed to herself. She had completely forgotten about Ino when she had started talking with Tenten, but now that Tenten was gone, all she could even think about again was Ino.

She hadn't even told Tenten a single thing about Ino or Sasuke or anything she had been thinking about. She figured it wasn't a great idea to tell someone she barely knew about something so personal, but after realizing how nice and down-to-earth and _awesome_ Tenten was, she kind of wished she had said something about it to her.

 _Oh well,_ thought Sakura. _Maybe some other time._

But how often was it that she'd meet someone with parents as relaxed as Tenten's? Sakura would never dream to ask her parents for something like that, and she knew they'd say no if she tried.

Sakura arrived at her apartment, said hi to her parents, had dinner, and went up to her room to think about everything that had happened.

What a day it had been.

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 **notes:** for any fellow band trash reading this, yes, I was listening to mayday parade when I came up with the title of the story, and yes, I was listening to 5sos when I came up with the title of the chapter. tbh the rest of the chapters will probably be named after song lyrics, too, because I'm lazy and uncreative.

I'd also like to point out that, even though sakura and ino currently dislike each other, I am NOT trying to make ino the bitch of sasusaku like so many other fics do. I HATE it when people portray her that way because ino's actually really nice and sweet and caring and it hurts me to see people portray her as a bitch. it's just not who she is.

I hope you liked it! review? :)


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